[Closed] How to copy a XRef object group as instance?

Jul 17, 2007 4:57 pm

Hi to all,

I’m new to maxscript and I’ve got a XRef object in my scene which I want to copy as instance. The XRef Object is a group which exists of three other objects. Imported as XRef Object and selected the group in the opened file.

when I use this operation:

newnode = instance $XRefObj

I just get a empty pink wirebox (a dummy) which has nothing in it. So when I copy the children as well and bind them to the first node:

newnode = instance $XRefObj
   
   for subnode in $XRefObj do
   (
   	newsubnode = instance subnode
   	newsubnode.parent = newnode
   )

It doesn’t work because I get an dummy object of the first instance instead of a group head. The three instances of the child objects are fine but the group head is missing and I need this as the groups pivot is moved.

So how can I copy the group head of an xref object or the whole group at once? Thx for all replies!

3 Replies

system

Jul 17, 2007 4:57 pm

i think u have to search to copy the path of the object not copy the node
…
i’m sorry i didn’t test what i said but i think it’s the way
i think the xref it’s look like a proxy to me

magicm

Jul 17, 2007 4:57 pm

You’re probably better off using the maxOps.CloneNodes function, which retains node hierarchies/dependencies. The following should do the trick:

maxOps.CloneNodes #($XRefObj) expandHierarchy:true cloneType:#instance

Be sure to check the maxscript reference for more information about this function.

Cheers,
Martijn

Pixelclown

Jul 17, 2007 4:57 pm

Thanks Martijn! This was exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t find it when I used to search for an answer in the maxscript reference, but now I found it. Didn’t know the maxOps before

A little comment to the final code I used:

maxOps.CloneNodes $XRefObj expandHierarchy:true cloneType:#instance newNodes:&newnode
  		
  newnode[1].pos = [0,0,0]
  newnode[1].rotation = (quat 0 0 0 1)

MAXScript automatically wraps the single argument passed into a temporary array, so you can use $XRefObj instead of #($XRefObj) to supply the node array. To get the new nodes in an array, just assign a new variable as reference to the newNode parameter. But when I want to move the group I have to pick the group head, the first element of the array. Then everything is working fine. Otherwise if I move the whole array every object of the group will be moved.

thanks again Martijn!